Wow. Not sure about the ending. It might be perfect, leaving you in sort of a frozen, casual state. Or you could go on from there and get more things out of it. It looked long and daunting at first (maybe just in comparison to what one is used to reading on BCB?), but soon I was reading along, and poof, it was over. Kind of like what I like to say about 'Sister Ray' and other drones: that at three minutes, it's boring; then at five minutes, it's interminable; and then it ends at seventeen minutes leaving me wanting more, as if it had only been three. The mind goes into a different state.

I have always liked your work, and this is certainly one of the best things I've read on here.

That was a fascinating read, Ray, and is quite timely, too, as I'm currently on vacation at a place I visited with my family when I was 13, back in 1983 (Grand Manan island, in the Bay of Fundy on Canada's east coast). Whilst here, I've been reading my father's journal from the first half of '83 (from Jan 1 to the end of July) including his thoughts on this very same trip we're on now, which has brought many long-buried memories flooding back, even though I can barely remember this place in my mental geography. Reading his words, while driving or walking around this place is a bit haunting, especially when he talks about what my 13-year old self was doing.

Harvey K-Tel wrote:That was a fascinating read, Ray, and is quite timely, too, as I'm currently on vacation at a place I visited with my family when I was 13, back in 1983 (Grand Manan island, in the Bay of Fundy on Canada's east coast). Whilst here, I've been reading my father's journal from the first half of '83 (from Jan 1 to the end of July) including his thoughts on this very same trip we're on now, which has brought many long-buried memories flooding back, even though I can barely remember this place in my mental geography. Reading his words, while driving or walking around this place is a bit haunting, especially when he talks about what my 13-year old self was doing.

Thanks for sharing.

Ooh. That detail about your Dad's journal sheds a new light on your pictures. Good stuff (I hope)

You come at the Queen, you best not miss.

Dr Markus wrote:Someone in your line of work usually as their own man cave aka the shed we're they can potter around fixing stuff or something don't they?

I have my own dead Dad story, though I doubt I could tell it as well as Ray has. I was 12, he was (barely) 57. I'm 54 now so maybe when, as Loudon Wainwright said, I'm older than my old man now, I might commemorate it.

My Dad was 48 when he died. I was a bit apprehensive when I became 47 and glad to be 49. Although I knew it was daft to be feeling that at the time. Although I am nearly 8 year older than him now, I still feel as if I'm younger.

I certainly can't top your story and wouldn't want to, of course, but your story did a good job reminding me of my first year in college when I lost my virginity. I had thought that popping my cherry would be the ticket to better grades. Didn't help. Soon thereafter I was chucked out of school.

Her name was Lou and she was going out with (banging?) a classmate. They had broken up. Lou and I got drunk at a party and ended up in my bed. She was my first. It was quick. We were sleeping together and banging just about every night after that. At that time Lou introduced me to a British musician named Elton John.

I was from out of town and Lou was a townie and one time in the midst of our tryst she took me to meet her family. Turns out that Lou's dad was recovering from a brain operation and was seated in the kitchen. The man was very gaunt, wearing pajamas and he had a really deep dent in his skull from the surgery and could barely mumble hello. Lou's mother was kind and made us dinner and that was that.

Some weeks went by and I was failing my classes and began to think I wanted to improve my grades and so I told Lou I wanted to see less of her. Did she cry! It was heartbreaking but I was waveringly adamant and so we broke up.

A few weeks after that I had heard that her dad had died. I called Lou and she was calm and asked me to please come to the funeral. Cut to the chase of this scene, She was very sad and I consoled her by hugging her, then kissing her and then sleeping with her in her bedroom. (That was kind of kinky fun, to be honest.) But then, uh oh, she took our very enjoyable reunion more seriously than I and somehow we went back to our former pattern of she spending nights at my place.

Thinking back, I may have felt guilty enough to marry Lou - she was a fine girl - but thank god I was thrown out of school and had to return to my town some hundreds of miles away.

“It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” Mark Twain

I certainly can't top your story and wouldn't want to, of course, but your story did a good job reminding me of my first year in college when I lost my virginity. Lou introduced me to a British musician named Elton John.

It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.

Diamond Dog wrote:...yet it quite clearly hit the target with you and your nonce, didn't it?

Thanks, Ray. Don't know what to say about this other than, particularly with what's going on with my aging mother (and how I lost my dad not as suddenly but very unexpectedly almost 25 years ago) it's making me think of how life works - how quickly everything can change. That you're able to write so lucidly about it half a century later is just one of the many reasons I'm glad you're here.

Jimbo wrote:My point is to save the world from WWIII.

Jimbo wrote:Trump is right. The collusion conspiracy theory has been debunked and you seem to refuse to look at the evidence.

People tell you that everything happens for a reason and they're wrong.

Things can and often do happen for no meaningful reason at all - it's just the interaction of our genes and environment with blind chance.

We, as a species, love to overlay everything with pattern and meaning where often there is none.

I don't have any major insights myself. I don't think anything can prepare you for shattering loss and 'abandonment' or do much to help in the wake of such things. Maybe that is the sole legitimate function of religion - but I still think it's an illusion.

I'm not sure what I'm rambling about really but that was a powerful narrative Ray - a truly brutal 'right of passage'.

I've been talking about writing a book - 25 years of TEFL - for a few years now. I've got it in me.